Paula Abdul Had to Audition for X-factor Judging Gig

Credit:
FOX
Photo: Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell Share a Moment in Season 6 of American Idol

The September premiere of The X Factor marks the happy reunion of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul! Steven Tyler can string together as many nonsensical phrases as he wants, but nothing quite reaches the entertainment value of Simon and Paula's playful bickering. But after eight seasons together on American Idol, Simon still insisted that Paula work for her spot on The X Factor. That's right, the ditzy singer had to audition for her place at the judging table just like everybody else!

Simon spoke to Fox All Access recently and said, “[Paula] was my first choice. I always said I was gonna have her on the show. But like everybody else, she had to kind of audition. You know, she had to show perseverance. She researched the show. When we met her, she was just on it. And the chemistry, whatever we had before, it hadn’t gone.”

But our favorite part of this brief interview was when Simon compared Paula to a rescued dog. He says, “[Paula’s return] was like walking in and you’ve got a dog that you’ve rescued from the dog center… And it’s just sitting there, looking at you…and you come in and it’s waging its tail. That’s kind of how it felt.”

Oh snap! We can’t help but wonder what Paula thinks of this comment. Let the banter begin!